7 Questions with Frank Stephenson, the Designer of the Modern Mini, McLaren P1, Ferrari F430, and More

"Wait until you see what's coming—I promise the McLaren P14 is even crazier than the P1."

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C/D: You started with Ford in Europe, where you’re best remembered for the Escort RS Cosworth.

FS: It was my highlight, definitely. If you look at that car you see it has a big wing on the back and a smaller one on the tailgate. But when I first did it there were three wings; like a Fokker Dr. I Triplane, there was another in the middle. The beancounters got rid of that one. “No car needs three wings.” Yeah, right, it would definitely have been better!

C/D: Next you went to BMW, where you designed the X5 and the R50 Mini. Was that the car that really put you on the map?

FS: I’ve never had children—I wish I had—but my mother, every time she sees a Mini it’s like her grandchild. There were 15 design proposals for that car, each with a designer and a team of clay modelers to get it built. Of course, it went down to the wire and it was past midnight on the day of the presentation—this was in October ’95—and we’d finished it and started to drink. Then I have one last walkaround and freeze: We’d forgotten to put an exhaust on the car. Everyone’s flat on their backs by this stage, so I took a Budweiser can from the chief modeler, cut it in half, polished it up, and then stuck it into the clay. Anyway, they chose the car, and Chris Bangle [then BMW’s chief of design] comes over and says: “Great job, Frank—this is going to be huge for you. But never, ever waste a modeler’s time making such a detailed exhaust pipe.” He thought it had been done on a lathe, taken somebody six hours.

Frank Stephenson and the MP4-12C

C/D: Were you surprised to be asked to go to Maranello?

FS: After the Mini, everyone was calling, but I didn’t want to leave. Then a professional headhunter calls up and says a company wants to talk about a senior design role, but she wouldn’t tell me who. They sent a plane ticket, and I figured why not go and see—the ticket was to Turin, so I thought Fiat. Sure enough, I get there and have lunch with the head of design for Fiat and the head of engineering, so I think it’s a studio manager position, something like that. When they tell me it’s design director for Ferrari and Maserati, I coughed tiramisu everywhere. Ferrari didn’t have a design director, it used Pininfarina and Giugiaro for everything. But they say that somebody needs to take control, that Luca [di Montezemolo] is getting all teed off because he doesn’t like the stuff they’re doing. I was like, “Where do I sign?” I was hired right there.

C/D: You had a dream job and got to oversee the F430 and Maserati MC12. So why did you move to Fiat?

FS: It was like going from heaven to hell. Fiat was ready to crash, the company had had it. [Sergio] Marchionne had come in and sacked almost everybody, and I was basically summoned to be design director. I was like, “What have I done wrong?” They said nothing, you’ve just got to build a new car in 10 months and it’s got to be successful or no more Fiat. So we had a brilliant idea; we took the most successful product they had, the Panda, and ripped the body off and put another on. That was the new 500.

C/D: After a brief interlude at Alfa, you were recruited by McLaren. Does Woking feel dull and sensible after Maranello?

FS: Not at all. Everybody who works in the car industry at this level is passionate; you’ve got to be. When I was at Ferrari, there were piles of paper on the floors, and people yelling across the room, or guys throwing things around. That’s passion, sure, but it doesn’t help you do things. Look at the P1. Nobody can accuse that car of being unemotional.

2014 McLaren P1

C/D: And how do you get on with Ron Dennis?

FS: When we first started on the P1, Ron asked if there was anything he could do to help. I said, “Yeah, give us Lewis Hamilton’s [F1] car from last year [2009],” just so we could absorb it basically, get our heads around it. It just sat in the studio for a month, and we looked at it and tried to figure it out—like an osmosis process. That was a big part of making the P1 the car it turned out to be—tight and athletic, wrapped around its hard points—and Ron got it straightaway.

C/D: Okay, so what would you do differently?

FS: I’ve got to be one of the luckiest people in this industry. The way my career has gone, I’ve always been moving uphill even if it felt like I was going sideways or down. Ferrari to Fiat felt like a slide, but I got to do the 500. Everything I’ve done has led me to where I am now, which is exactly where I want to be. And wait until you see what’s coming—I promise the McLaren P14 [2017 650S replacement] is even crazier than the P1.